HODDY
Fish Herder
Hi im setting up a pure molly tank how much salt per gallon should i put in there?thanks.Please can i have quick replies,Not being rude but im settign it up right this minute lol.
Salt Water For Mollies?
- Thread starter HODDY
- Start date
What type of molly?
They are happy with up to 3 teaspoons per gallon and some can go higher.
Are they in brackish water now or fresh?
Adding salt to any freshwater has to be done slowly. Are you adding any plants as that means you cant go strong with the salt. For the now I suggest 1 level teaspoon per gallon.
They are happy with up to 3 teaspoons per gallon and some can go higher.
Are they in brackish water now or fresh?
Adding salt to any freshwater has to be done slowly. Are you adding any plants as that means you cant go strong with the salt. For the now I suggest 1 level teaspoon per gallon.
HODDY
Fish Herder
theyll be on there own and will the be ok and thrive with 1 teaspoon per gal? I just want whats best forthem you see.And what plants would survive in it.
If you want a true brackish tank for them then I think you need to wait for someone who has actually done this. I dont think many plants would last long with salted water unless mangrove.
Im sure someone will advise you
Im sure someone will advise you
HODDY
Fish Herder
thankyou.Ive added 1 teaspoon per gallon maybe abit more will this do?
For now yes I would say its enough. Place a post in the brackish section and see if you get a better response
Are you adding aquarium salt, or marine salt? Aquarium salt honestly doesn't do much for them. For marine salt, I'd use a hydrometer to test the water to see how much is actually in there, rather than just adding it in. You'll want to aim for 1.001 to 1.003 for the specific gravity. Don't add the salt right in, mix it up in a bucket first, so it isn't too salty. There's a good list of brackish plants in the brackish section. It's a pretty good list, since it's not that salty.
nmonks
A stroke of the brush does not guarantee art from
Adding salt to a molly aquarium is a very good idea. The exact amount couldn't matter less, as mollies are happy in everything from freshwater to fully marine water. What the salt seems to do is reduce the chance of the mollies getting finrot, fungus, and the "shimmies" to practically zero.
I'd recommend aiming for 10% seawater, which is about 3.5 grammes per litre. You can weigh out the salt using kitchen scales. Make sure you bundle up the open salt box carefully, as once it's open it absorbs moisture from the air, making it impossible to accurately estimate the salinity this way. A hydrometer is a good idea, and a cheap, floating glass hydrometer will cost about $5. Using the specific gravity scale (SG), 10% seawater is about 1.001. This small increase in salinity from 0 to 10% seawater will have zero effect on your biological filter.
If you want, you can raise the salinity to 20% seawater, 7 grammes per litre, about SG 1.003. This will allow you to add brackish water fishes if you want them, and will be tolerated by a large variety of plants. Java ferns famously do very well in brackish water, but there are host of others.
You'll probably be surprised how many brackish water fishes there are once you start looking. Gobies mix well with mollies and add some movement to the bottom of the tank. Conversely, wrestling halfbeaks can be a fun addition to the top of the tank. Flatfish are tricky in community tanks but work well with mollies, since the flatfish feed best at night but can't compete with catfish and loaches. There are really lots of things you can do with a brackish molly tank.
Cheers,
Neale
I'd recommend aiming for 10% seawater, which is about 3.5 grammes per litre. You can weigh out the salt using kitchen scales. Make sure you bundle up the open salt box carefully, as once it's open it absorbs moisture from the air, making it impossible to accurately estimate the salinity this way. A hydrometer is a good idea, and a cheap, floating glass hydrometer will cost about $5. Using the specific gravity scale (SG), 10% seawater is about 1.001. This small increase in salinity from 0 to 10% seawater will have zero effect on your biological filter.
If you want, you can raise the salinity to 20% seawater, 7 grammes per litre, about SG 1.003. This will allow you to add brackish water fishes if you want them, and will be tolerated by a large variety of plants. Java ferns famously do very well in brackish water, but there are host of others.
You'll probably be surprised how many brackish water fishes there are once you start looking. Gobies mix well with mollies and add some movement to the bottom of the tank. Conversely, wrestling halfbeaks can be a fun addition to the top of the tank. Flatfish are tricky in community tanks but work well with mollies, since the flatfish feed best at night but can't compete with catfish and loaches. There are really lots of things you can do with a brackish molly tank.
Cheers,
Neale
HODDY
Fish Herder
ok thankyou for the good info.I will post something in the blackish section.
theotheragentm
Fish Herder
If you don't want to keep brackish fish and want to keep freshwater fish, Mollies do better with salt in the water, but don't require it. Just make sure they have clean, stable water conditions. Platies can handle some salt too as another option, but not brackish conditions.
nmonks
A stroke of the brush does not guarantee art from
Here's my thing... what do you mean by "better"? Surely, we want always to keep fish in whatever conditions they do best in. We want fish to thrive, not survive. With mollies, 50% of the time they seem to get sick when kept in freshwater. Yes, I know people have kept and bred them in freshwater, and I respect that. But for every one person who has good success with them in freshwater, there's another who had a running battle with finrot and fungus. So my argument is that since 50% of mollies do well in freshwater, but 100% of mollies do well in brackish water, why not simply call them brackish water fish and be done with it?
Cheers, Neale
Cheers, Neale
theotheragentm
Fish Herder
I am in no means trying to disprove anything you're saying nmonks. I have a question though. When you buy Mollies from a fish store, they're kept in tanks that are using the same water to circulate all the other freshwater tanks. Are they being kept incorrectly in your opinion? I was under the impression that they can be kept in either as long as they are acclimated properly. Being that the Mollies in fish stores are using the same cycled water as the other tanks, I would assume they are used to freshwater. Are you still in favor of adding salt no matter what? Do the Mollies not get used to the water they're in or are they just resilient and able to survive in freshwater, which is not natural for them.
nmonks
A stroke of the brush does not guarantee art from
Hello theotheragentm!
Good questions. Fish kept at the retailer have a somewhat different like to fish in a home aquarium. For one thing, they're expect to leave quickly, because shops make profit on turnover. Any fish that hangs around for more than a few weeks isn't profitable. So all a fish shop wants is for a fish to stay healthy for a month or two. An ultraviolet filter is usually installed to prevent diseases getting between the tank (at least in the better shops) and many stores will also treat the tank proactively with antibacterials and antifungals. While fine in the short term, proactive treatment isn't good for fish in the long term (any more than taking antibiotics every day or rubbing antispectics on your skin every day aren't good, either). Anyway, a lot of fish on display will be in the wrong water conditions for the long term as well. I've seen juvenile Arothron hispidus being sold as freshwater fish... but these are really marine fish, normally sold as "dog faced puffers". Obviously, many brackish water fish like spotted puffers and violet gobies are sold as freshwater fish, even though they need at least some salt in the water over the long term.
Yes, fish can acclimate to a range of conditions given time, but not all fish can stay at those "wrong" conditions forever. Take neon tetras. While they will live in hard water, their mortality is much higher, meaning that many people end up finding neons in hard water aquaria are basically annuals that need to be replaced every year or so. In soft water, neons will live for up to 4 years. Many brackish water fish, and some marine fish (like the puffer mentioned above) can live in freshwater for weeks or months, perhaps even years. But there sensitivity to disease is higher, and they end up living shorter lives. A well-studied example is the green spotted puffer, which will live around 5 years or so in freshwater, but at least twice as long in a brackish or marine tank.
So with mollies, while you can keep them in freshwater, life becomes easier (for you and the fish) if they are kept in slightly brackish. The reasons are not clear. In part, it has to be because some molly species (e.g., Poecilia gillii) are really brackish water fish, and the mollies sold in the aquarium trade are all hybrids and we have no idea exactly which species are in them. Some might have brackish water ancestors, others not, but either way you can't tell. Keeping mollies in brackish is really just a "safe default" that certainly does no harm and potentially does much good.
Another advantage is that the marine salt mix (not tonic salt) raises the pH and hardness. Even the freshwater mollies in the wild prefer hard, alkaline waters and are not found in acidic streams or soft blackwater rivers, as many other aquarium fish are. All want pH 7.5 upwards and "high" hardness. In a freshwater aquarium, the organic loading tends to drive the pH down between water changes. Adding the marine salt mix prevents this, because the calcareous salts in the mix buffer the water. So adding marine salt is an insurance policy against the wrong pH and hardness levels.
If you love mollies, and plan to keep and breed them on their own or with other livebearers, then adding salt is, frankly, a no-brainer. It is cheap, easy to use, and prevents lots of problems. True, you can't keep Corydoras or tetras in such a tank, but swordtails, platies, guppies, Endlers, and wrestling halfbeaks all couldn't care less about a little salt, so you can still have your livebearer tank without the worry of fungus and finrot.
Cheers, Neale
Good questions. Fish kept at the retailer have a somewhat different like to fish in a home aquarium. For one thing, they're expect to leave quickly, because shops make profit on turnover. Any fish that hangs around for more than a few weeks isn't profitable. So all a fish shop wants is for a fish to stay healthy for a month or two. An ultraviolet filter is usually installed to prevent diseases getting between the tank (at least in the better shops) and many stores will also treat the tank proactively with antibacterials and antifungals. While fine in the short term, proactive treatment isn't good for fish in the long term (any more than taking antibiotics every day or rubbing antispectics on your skin every day aren't good, either). Anyway, a lot of fish on display will be in the wrong water conditions for the long term as well. I've seen juvenile Arothron hispidus being sold as freshwater fish... but these are really marine fish, normally sold as "dog faced puffers". Obviously, many brackish water fish like spotted puffers and violet gobies are sold as freshwater fish, even though they need at least some salt in the water over the long term.
Yes, fish can acclimate to a range of conditions given time, but not all fish can stay at those "wrong" conditions forever. Take neon tetras. While they will live in hard water, their mortality is much higher, meaning that many people end up finding neons in hard water aquaria are basically annuals that need to be replaced every year or so. In soft water, neons will live for up to 4 years. Many brackish water fish, and some marine fish (like the puffer mentioned above) can live in freshwater for weeks or months, perhaps even years. But there sensitivity to disease is higher, and they end up living shorter lives. A well-studied example is the green spotted puffer, which will live around 5 years or so in freshwater, but at least twice as long in a brackish or marine tank.
So with mollies, while you can keep them in freshwater, life becomes easier (for you and the fish) if they are kept in slightly brackish. The reasons are not clear. In part, it has to be because some molly species (e.g., Poecilia gillii) are really brackish water fish, and the mollies sold in the aquarium trade are all hybrids and we have no idea exactly which species are in them. Some might have brackish water ancestors, others not, but either way you can't tell. Keeping mollies in brackish is really just a "safe default" that certainly does no harm and potentially does much good.
Another advantage is that the marine salt mix (not tonic salt) raises the pH and hardness. Even the freshwater mollies in the wild prefer hard, alkaline waters and are not found in acidic streams or soft blackwater rivers, as many other aquarium fish are. All want pH 7.5 upwards and "high" hardness. In a freshwater aquarium, the organic loading tends to drive the pH down between water changes. Adding the marine salt mix prevents this, because the calcareous salts in the mix buffer the water. So adding marine salt is an insurance policy against the wrong pH and hardness levels.
If you love mollies, and plan to keep and breed them on their own or with other livebearers, then adding salt is, frankly, a no-brainer. It is cheap, easy to use, and prevents lots of problems. True, you can't keep Corydoras or tetras in such a tank, but swordtails, platies, guppies, Endlers, and wrestling halfbeaks all couldn't care less about a little salt, so you can still have your livebearer tank without the worry of fungus and finrot.
Cheers, Neale
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